In 1921, the traffic in women and children became the first human rights issue to be formally recognized by a Convention of the League of Nations, a recognition soon followed by the creation of the...

The history of eugenics has become a classic arena for examining how the interplay of culture, social interests and social structures affects the advancement of science. At the same time eugenics demonstrates how in the first half of the twentieth century, the expectation arose that science could offer the solution of social problems; for biology intruded into many areas of social policy during the 1920s and 30s. Historians of science have been struck by the coincidence between the rise of genetics (...) and eugenics after 1900. Genetics underpinned techniques of family reconstruction, which were deployed for the screening of population groups. Areas of social policy such as the prediction of potential criminals and other types of social deviancy relied on eugenic rationales. This poses intriguing problems concerning the extent to which genetic research was motivated by eugenic ideals, particularly in the field of human genetics. At the same time, it is important to recognize that eugenics was a heterogenous agglomeration of sciences: in addition to genetics, a prominent place was taken by anthropology, clinical medicine, statistics, and psychology. These diverse constituents were welded together by cultural and social movements peculiar to respective national contexts. (shrink)

Human groups, such as families, tribes, and nations, are often perceived as possessing mental qualities and characteristics more or less common to the group as a whole. This ancient tendency to attribute properties of personality or individuality to human aggregates is particularly strong nowadays with regard to nations, the basic units of political action in this age of nationalism and internationalism.In the recent UNESCO study by W. Buchanan and H. Cantril, How Nations See Each Other (1953), based on an (...) eight-nation sample, few findings are more revealing than the low frequency of respondents who declare themselves unable to characterize their own nation. All but a very small proportion gave their views freely when asked to describe the character of their countrymen. When this same question was asked with regard to a series of other nationalities, the “Don't know” responses (“impossible to characterize”) were in some cases much more frequent—up to 71 per cent as in the case of the German sample in regard to the Chinese; in others again very low—down to 3 per cent as in the western European responses regarding the United States. These variations are assumed to reflect differences in the degree of familiarity of nations with each other, depending on their mutual relationships over time, their physical proximity or distance, and so on. (shrink)

Ciertamente, la migración es una problemática compleja que merece seguir siendo estudiada desde una perspectiva multidisciplinaria y con amplitud de miras. En Ética, política y migración acompañamos desde la filosofía, la sociología, la geo-grafía y las teorías educativas a los flujos migratorios que se dan en nuestra nación. Emprenderemos un viaje teórico desde las experiencias de las y los migrantes centroamericanos en la frontera sur de nuestro país hasta su llegada y recepción a la fronte-ra norte. Continuaremos nuestra jornada reflexionando (...) sobre las experiencias de nuestros compatriotas mexicanos que resi-den en Estados Unidos y que sufren muchas de las carencias y formas de discriminación que experimentan las y los migrantes centroamericanos en nuestra nación. Nuestro recorrido terminará con la anotación —y reflexión— de que las fronteras cerra-das afectan no solo a las personas, sino también a los animales no-humanos y al medioambiente. (página 9). (shrink)

Immigration law is exceptional enough to deserve an administrative law focus of its own. The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) does not demand uniformity in adjudication. Therefore, it may be counterintuitive to argue that any one area of administrative adjudication is exceptional. Removal adjudication is indeed exceptional because it is an extremely dysfunctional system, it operates in a double void of fewer constitutional protections and without the protections of the APA, it relies on a vast network of civil detention, and it (...) is of a different genre than the type of regulation that drove the development of the APA. The exceptionality of removal adjudication demands a review of administrative law doctrine with this exceptionality in mind. (shrink)

Marketing communication executives are continuously confronted with dilemmas requiring moral deliberation. To better understand morality, media ethicists have applied moral psychology theory to und...

A 16-year-old adolescent who identifies as transgender wishes to consider fertility preservation prior to the use of gender-affirming hormones. The adolescent’s parents are divorced, and one parent supports fertility preservation while the other does not. This case explores the minor’s future reproductive autonomy and parental decision making in a field where there is limited evidence of known harms and benefits to the use of fertility preservation in the transgender population and about future potential regret from lack of consideration of fertility (...) preservation during the prime window of opportunity. This case is created from a composite of cases seen at multiple institutions. (shrink)

An idea salient in the African and East Asian philosophical traditions is that the right sort of socio-political interaction would be similar to the intuitive ways that family members ought to relate to each other. Applying this perspective to economic and ecological inequalities, I articulate some principles implicit in healthy familial relationships, show what they entail for certain aspects of distributive justice at the national level, and contend that the implications are plausible relative to competing theories such as utilitarianism, (...) Rawlsianism, and the Capabilities Approach. Specifically, I maintain that reflection on familial norms suggests that an array of objective goods, particularly ones pertaining to relationality, the development of talents, and life, should be central to what the state distributes, an account that rivals subjective well-being, primary goods, or democratically chosen capabilities. When it comes to how much the state should ideally ensure each citizen has, reflection on familial norms supports a new, balancing approach, according to which all have a comparable share of resources needed for objective goodness, but more go to those with great ability or great disability, an approach that differs, and plausibly so, from maximizing, prioritizing the worst off, equalizing, or providing a sufficient minimum. (shrink)

L’Esquisse du droit familial de Fichte est un texte rarement commenté et presque toujours jugé marginal. Or le considérer ainsi, c’est s’interdire de comprendre le dispositif particulier de cette annexe au Fondement du droit naturel et de réaliser quel péril Fichte a fait courir à sa philosophie du droit en rédigeant un tel opuscule. Dans la mesure où Fichte fait dépendre son droit familial des données biologiques imposées par la nature, ce ne sont pas en effet les conclusions (...) de cette Esquisse qui la rendent peu compatible avec son système du droit, mais ses prémisses. Cet article tente de montrer qu’un droit familial réellement fidèle à la doctrine fichtéenne du droit reste à écrire. Et, au-delà de l’exégèse philosophique, il s’agit aussi de montrer ici l’inconséquence de certaines dispositions du droit de la bioéthique visant à ériger la Nature en norme transcendante du droit.The Outline of Family Right by Fichte is generally considered as a minor text by most scholars when it is studied at all. However, such a point of view does not enable one to comprehend Fichte’s motives for this appendix to the Foundations of Natural Right and to realize how much he jeopardized his work on the philosophy of Right by writing such an opuscule. Indeed, as Fichte enslaves his family Right to biological data, what makes that Outline almost incompatible with his system of Right is its premisses, not its conclusions. What this article tries to demonstrate is that a fully Fichtean family Right remains to be written. Beyond the philosophical interpretation, the aim of this article is eventually to point out the inconsistency of some contemporary articles, e.g. in the French laws of Bioethics, seeking to hold Nature for the transcendent norm of Right. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of Michel Foucault's continually changing observations on familial power, as well as the feminist-Foucauldian literature on the family. It suggests that these accounts offer fragments of a genealogy of the family that undermine any all-encompassing or transhistorical account of the institution. Approaching the family genealogically, rather than seeking a single model of power that can explain it, shows that far from this institution being a quasi-natural formation or a bedrock of unassailable values, it is (...) in fact a continually contested fiction that masks its own histories of becoming. (shrink)

Müller argues that general cognitive skills and linguistic skills are not necessarily independent. However, cross-linguistic evidence from an inherited specific language disorder affecting productive rules suggests significant degrees of modularity, innateness, and universality of language. Confident claims about the overall nature of such a complex system still await more interdisciplinary research.

L’article esquisse d’abord le dispositif institutionnel d’accueil familial théra--peutique ( aft ) au sein duquel se déploie chez l’enfant la problématique étudiée – une affiliation spécifique en accueil familial. Il précise les conditions et les dynamiques de prise en charge en séparation protectrice, ici à dimension thérapeutique. Le cas clinique illustre l’évolution de l’affiliation, conforme à une longue expérience empirique acquise par l’équipe de professionnels dans l’accompagnent des dynamiques psychiques chez les enfants qui bénéficient de deux pôles d’affiliation, (...) à travers les liens avec la famille et la famille d’accueil. En appui sur les recherches et les articles parus sur ce sujet et sur les résultats d’une récente étude évoquant le destin des affiliations en accueil familial, l’auteur développe le concept de « double affiliation » que déploient les enfants en accueil familial dont le destin dépendra de la qualité du cadre d’accompagnement professionnel (humain et matériel) d’une telle situation existentielle extrême. (shrink)

L’auteur aborde la question du modèle adoptif dans le cadre du placement familial. Cette évolution nécessite l’action conjointe de l’institution, de la famille d’accueil et de l’enfant placé. Pour atténuer les effets de cette dynamique au long cours, il s’agirait, entre autres, d’aider l’assistante maternelle à ne pas identifier l’enfant placé, corps étranger à sa propre famille, au corps étranger interne, constitué d’éléments infantiles non élaborés, qu’elle abrite. Cette étude s’appuie également sur deux observations cliniques susceptibles de préciser les (...) enjeux et les risques du modèle adoptif. (shrink)

L’épreuve projective intitulée « spatiographie projective familiale » a pour objectif de comprendre l’image inconsciente du corps familial à travers l’analyse du dessin groupal de la « maison de rêve ». Par cette méthodologie, les auteurs peuvent établir un diagnostic de la structure des liens inconscients de la famille et en faire un objet médiateur pour la prise en charge psychothérapique et une épreuve projective groupale familiale pour le diagnostic. Le dessin de la « maison de rêve » est (...) un outil original qui investigue les dimensions diachronique et synchronique permettant une approche complète de la structuration de l’image du corps familial. (shrink)

This essay explores the preferences, anticipations and expectations of the elderly regarding the role of family members in making health care decisions for them should they become decisionally incapacitated. Findings are presented from a series of in-depth interviews of men and women aged 67–91 years. Following a discussion of the uncertain legal status of familial surrogate decision-making, we argue that the family unit's autonomy is sufficient to justify the elderly's preferred reliance on their own family. Further, we suggest that (...) social and legal policy changes should facilitate, rather than impede, familial decision-making. (shrink)

Dans cet article, l’auteur propose une synthèse des différents types d’articulations entre le couple et la famille. Ces distinctions le conduisent à interroger le choix du dispositif thérapeutique.

Communicating genetic information to family members has been the subject of an extensive debate recently in bioethics and law. In this context, the extent of the relatives’ right to know and not to know is examined. The mainstream in the bioethical literature adopts a liberal perception of patient autonomy and offers a utilitarian mechanism for solving familial tensions over genetic information. This reflects a patient-centred approach in which disclosure without consent is justified only to prevent serious harm or death (...) to others. Based on a legal and bioethical analysis on the one hand, and an examination of empirical studies on the other, this paper advocates the adoption of a relational perception of autonomy, which, in the context of genetics, takes into account the effect that any decision—whether to disclose or not to disclose—will have on the familial relationship and the dynamics of the particular family. Adding this factor to the criteria usually advocated by lawyers and ethicists will facilitate reaching a sensitive decision, which recognises the various interests of family members beyond the risk to physical health. Taking this factor into account will require a process of deliberation both between doctors and patients, and in the family. It will also require a relaxation of medical confidentiality, as the family rather than the patient is gradually perceived as the unit of care. Moreover, adopting such a relational approach will accord with current views of doctors and patients who base their decision primarily on the nature of the familial relationship. (shrink)

Social care responses to extra-familial harm require social workers to work across the binaries of welfare and justice, victim and perpetrator, parent and professional, risk and protection. This paper examines the ethical consequences of working in this manner, through qualitative data (focus groups, interviews, observations, case file analysis and documentary review) from three children's social care organisations in England who trialled new child protection pathways for significant harm outside of family homes/relationships. The extent to which these pathways created five (...) conditions for a welfare response to extra-familial harm are considered, before these results are brought into conversation with Bourdieu’s meta theory of capital, habitus and doxa, and Fenton's practice theory of ethical stress. The challenges identified evidence of the importance foregrounding social work values in the pursuit of welfare-based response to extra-familial harm. They also offer a rationale for studying theories of care ethics in social work in the context of interagency practice. (shrink)

Le conseil conjugal et familial propose un premier travail avec les personnes, les couples ou les familles qui rencontrent des difficultés d’ordre conjugal, parental ou familial. Il favorise, dans un cadre sécurisé, la mise en mots des ressentis et la remise en route de la pensée pour permettre aux personnes d’accéder à une représentation de leur situation et de ce qui les fait souffrir. Le conseiller conjugal et familial, de par la contenance qu’il offre, apporte ainsi une (...) aide pour sortir du chaos intérieur et pour entrer en dialogue avec soi-même ainsi qu’à l’intérieur du couple ou de la famille. Cette prise en charge peut se révéler suffisante pour surmonter des difficultés passagères ; elle pourra aussi, par le travail d’élaboration psychique qu’elle favorise, déboucher sur un travail thérapeutique à proprement parler auprès d’un thérapeute individuel, conjugal ou familial. (shrink)

This article has two purposes: first, to describe some archival discoveries about Nicod’s family background, academic development and political life; and second, to publish and comment on a newly discovered article by Nicod about Russell. This article acclaims not only Russell’s achievements in logic and philosophy—as one might expect from such a devoted protégé as Nicod—but also (albeit only in glimpses permitted by France’s wartime censorship) his anti-war politics and writings. As the reader will realize, the two objectives are connected: (...) what the archives reveal and what the article illustrates is a hitherto underappreciated level of political awareness and pacifist commitment in Nicod. (shrink)

Si la notion de handicap ne cesse de progresser sur les plans tant déontologique que descriptif, l’évolution des mentalités, elle, reste en retard. La réalité du handicap génère toujours peurs et représentations contradictoires au sein de notre société. Le regard porté sur cette différence stigmatise et plonge les sujets dans des modalités relationnelles complexes. Être parent d’un enfant en situation de handicap, c’est porter une part de son stigmate. L’interaction entre le social et le familial produit des tensions qui (...) deviennent de véritables conflits psychiques au sein du groupe familial. L’article explore les mécanismes sociopsychologiques en œuvre. Il semble que certains parents vont progressivement, sous l’effet conjoint de leur propre histoire infantile et des messages sociaux concernant le handicap, mettre en place des mécanismes défensifs principalement marqués par l’évitement du lien à l’autre. (shrink)

Approximately 1 in 30 people develop cancer due to an underlying familial predisposition. Genetic counselling and testing for people with (and at risk of) familial cancer are becoming more widely available, but service providers need to address challenging issues in relation to privacy and property. As in any counselling situation, a genetic counsellor seeks to ensure that the principles of autonomy, confidentiality, beneficence, and equity operate in favour of the client. But in dealing with a familial disorder, (...) the application of these principles to the individual must be balanced with the potential for these principles to apply to other family members. This paper summarises the recent experience of a familial cancer service in seeking to avoid situations in which these principles, operating for both individual clients and their relatives, can come into conflict. (shrink)

A case is presented in which the therapeutic interests of the patient conflict with the safety of a community, and in which the surrogate decision maker has very limited knowledge of or concern for the patient’s preferences. The substituted judgment and best interest (or rational patient) standards for surrogate decision making are problematic in this case. It is argued that the interests of even those outside the family ought to be taken seriously when making decisions about such cases, and it (...) is proposed that clinical ethics committees could play a new role here. This case also illustrates the difficulties of making decisions regarding the treatment of a very unlikable patient. (shrink)

Objectives: To study the consent process experienced by participants who are enrolled in a molecular genetic research study that aims to find new genetic mutations responsible for an apparently inherited disorder.Design: Semi-structured interviews and analysis/description of main themes.Participants: 78 members of 52 families who had been recruited to a molecular genetic study.Results: People were well informed about the goals, risks and benefits of the genetic research study but could not remember the consent process. They had mostly been recruited to take (...) part by trusted clinicians or their relatives but had little memory of, or concern about signing consent forms. Families appeared to regard the research as a continuation of their, or their relatives’, clinical care.Conclusions: Ethical review should be more flexible in its attitude to consent forms and written information sheets for some sorts of research. For rare genetic disease studies where research has been discussed fully within the clinical setting then the consent obtained at that time could suffice rather than needing extra consent at a later stage. However, clinician-researchers will need to ensure that their duty of care extends for the duration of the research and beyond. (shrink)

Familial clustering of a disease is defined as the occurrence of the disease within some families in excess of what would be expected from the occurrence in the population. It has been demonstrated for several cancer types, ranging from rare cancers as the adenomatosis-coli-associated colon cancer or the Li-Fraumeni syndrome to more common cancers as breast cancer and colon cancer. Familial clustering, however, is merely an epidemiological pattern, and it does not tell whether genetic or environmental causes or (...) both in combination are responsible for the familial clustering. Familial clustering may be due to genetic predisposition to the disease, but exposure to environmental factors — shared by members of some families, but not by members of other families — may also cause familial clustering and hence mimic genetic inheritance in the study of nuclear families. Based on assumptions regarding the individual steps in the biological process starting with exposure to carcinogens and ending with death from disseminated cancer we suggest that genetic and environmental factors may both be involved in most of these steps. The present paper focuses on research methodologies necessary to discriminate between the effect of genes and family environment in the development of cancer. (shrink)

Laudato si’, with its articulation of a familial ecology reflecting Francis’s Latin American context, expands the subject of solidarity in Catholic social teaching and thought. Yet, this ecological vision of family fails to attend to the problem of gender subordination latent in Catholic social teaching, including in its approaches to ecology. A vision of solidarity that eradicates gender and ecological subordination must elaborate a familial ecology characterized by both mercy and equality.

Durant les confinements de mars et novembre 2020 liés à la covid-19, les familles ont vécu dans un quasi huis clos, suscitant une double interrogation : comment les liens intrafamiliaux ont-ils été impactés? Selon quelles modalités les fonctions supports de l’enveloppe psychique familiale ont-elles pu rester opérantes dans ce contexte de proximité familiale inédite? L’article, sur la base d’entretiens de recherche individuels auprès de chaque membre d’une même famille et d’un entretien avec la famille au complet, complété par la réalisation (...) de l’épreuve de spatiographie projective familiale, décrit comment, dans un tel contexte, se jouait la permanence de la fonction contenante de l’enveloppe psychique familiale. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, I shall briefly examine the basic characteristics of Confucian familial morality, especially of the concept of filial piety, and argue that ancient Confucians tend to be conservative on allowing breach of filial obligations although they may not entirely exclude particular considerations to exceptional situations to a certain degree. I shall then argue that this conservative aspect of the Confucian idea of filial piety accurately captures some distinctive features of familial relationships and may thus shed light (...) on our understanding of the ethical nature of human family life and our philosophical investigation of familial ethics. (shrink)

Le placement familial pose d’emblée la question d’un conflit culturel, entre représentations de ce qui définit, pour chacun des acteurs en présence, une famille. Certaines apparaissent compatibles, d’autres ne le sont pas. L’enfant se construira à partir de ce constat et des mises en tension qu’il génère. L’auteur, psychologue, explique l’importance du lien et du dialogue entre culture de la famille d’origine et culture de la famille d’accueil. C’est à travers l’étude du rapport au corps de l’enfant, des modalités (...) relationnelles rencontrées au fil de l’accueil et de la question des valeurs familiales et culturelles transmises à l’enfant que s’établit cette recherche sur les conséquences d’un choc entre cultures familiales dans le cadre d’un placement familial. L’institution se doit de prendre la mesure d’une telle dynamique afin, d’une part, de soulager l’enfant d’une telle responsabilité et, d’autre part, de promouvoir une sorte de métissage culturel familial, garant du processus de subjectivation en situation de placement. (shrink)

The article presents a theory of the basis and nature of parents’ rights that appeals to the goods distinctively produced by intimate-but-authoritative relationships between adults and the children they parent. It explores the implications of that theory for questions about parents’ rights to raise their children as members of a religion, with particular attention to the issue of religious schooling. Even if not obstructing the development of their children’s capacity for autonomy, parents exceed the bounds of their legitimate authority in (...) so far as they aim deliberately to influence their children’s religious views. Healthy familial relationships involve some identification of child with parent and require a sphere of spontaneous interaction between parent and child that are in any case likely to influence those views and constitute a standing threat to autonomy. Correcting over-deferential understandings of parents’ rights enables schools better to promote not only children’s autonomy but also other legitimate civic goals. (shrink)

Since its origins in the mid-1980s, DNA profiling has become the most powerful tool for identification in contemporary society. Practitioners have deployed it to determine parentage, verify claims to identity in various civil contexts, identify bodies in wars and mass disasters, and infer the identity of individuals who have left biological traces at crime scenes. Thus DNA profiling can be used to implicate or exonerate individuals from participation in particular social relations and activities; this affords it a growing importance in (...) major social institutions such as the family, the criminal justice system, immigration services, and health services. There are key state, security, civil liberty, personal, and commercial considerations surrounding the reliability and social implications of DNA profiling in establishing the identities of “family members,” “claimants,” “customers,” “suspects,” and “citizens.”Given that DNA profiling is increasingly influential in forensic inquiries, the recently-developed practice in the UK of “familial searching” of DNA databases has the potential to become a significant aspect of investigations. (shrink)

This paper applies a relational and familial ethic to address concerns relating to nursing home deaths and advance care planning during Covid‐19 and beyond. The deaths of our elderly in nursing homes during this pandemic have been made more complicated by the restriction of visitors even at the end of life, a time when families would normally be present. While we must be vigilant about preventing unnecessary deaths caused by coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes, some deaths of our elders (...) are inevitable. Thus, it is essential that advanced care planning occurs in a way that upholds the familial and relational aspects of elders’ lives that often matter to them the most. We invoke concepts from feminist ethicists like Hilde Lindemann and Eva Kittay and introduce Avery Weisman and Thomas Hackett’s concept of “appropriate death” to suggest better ways of planning for those deaths of our elderly that cannot be avoided. Our hope is to allow for deaths that are as meaningful as possible for both the elderly and the family members who survive them. (shrink)

Le placement d’un enfant en famille d’accueil doit se concevoir comme un acte complexe tenant compte de la souffrance de l’enfant, de la nature de ses troubles et des problèmes rencontrés par ses parents. Il ne peut se réduire à une solution de substitution ou d’attente, mais doit avoir l’ambition de promouvoir des changements dans le contexte de vie de l’enfant et dans son monde interne marqué par les traumatismes qu’il a subis et favoriser un processus dont la composante psychique (...) répond à la fonction contenante décrite par le psychanalyste Wilfred Bion, qui s’exerce par un travail d’élaboration des messages conscients et inconscients émis par l’enfant. L’auteur, psychanalyste et pédopsychiatre, détaille les composantes de la fonction contenante : sa composante de réceptivité psychique, qui permet d’être à l’écoute de la souffrance de l’enfant, et sa composante de transformation en quête de sens de ce qui a été reçu. Deux vignettes cliniques illustrent cette fonction contenante. (shrink)

Lors des entretiens pré- IVG chez les mineures dans le cadre du Centre de planification, la conseillère conjugale se pose la question de ce qu’il est nécessaire de connaître pour que cet entretien aide la jeune fille à vivre son interruption de grossesse et à affronter éventuellement ses parents. Comment poser des limites à cet entretien bien particulier? Que transmettre dans le dossier de la patiente et dans la synthèse avec les autres partenaires?